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The Ontario New Democrats have uncovered more emails they say show Liberal government staff interfering with freedom of information requests.

By The Canadian Press

Tues., May 10, 2011

TORONTO—The Ontario New Democrats have uncovered more emails they say show Liberal government staff interfering with freedom of information requests.

The NDP obtained copies of a media request for a 2009 audit report on the Niagara Parks Commission, a request that Ministry of Finance officials wanted to transfer to the Ministry of Tourism.

But emails show Andrew Chornenky, now Finance Minister Dwight Duncan’s press secretary, told the officials to say instead that no such records exist.

Duncan says all his assistant was doing was telling officials to say no records exist at the Finance Ministry. The Liberals say it’s not their job to tell someone making an FOI request which ministry actually has a requested file.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath says the situation “stinks badly” and accuses the Liberals of putting the party’s interests ahead of the public’s.

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But Duncan says the NDP are taking the email out of context and making false and inaccurate statements, noting the audit report was released by the Tourism Ministry.

On Monday, the NDP revealed emails from Chornenky telling officials to label some freedom of information requests as “contentious,” which they say is code for slowing down the release of data.

However, Duncan said it was just a word that alerts ministers to the contentious nature of a request, and has no bearing in law or regulation.

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